What Jazz are you listening to now?

[SimonNZ]

Steve Lacy - Reflections (1958)
Willis Jackson - Blue Gator (1959)

[aligreto]

Some very early Ellington....

[SimonNZ]

Shirley Scott - Scottie Plays The Duke (1959)
Yusef Lateef - The Fabric Of Jazz (1959)

^That might well be the best Shirley Scott album I've heard

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

[SimonNZ]

Art Taylor's - Taylor's Tenors (1959)

[king ubu]

Shirley Scott - Scottie Plays The Duke (1959)

^That might well be the best Shirley Scott album I've heard

Have you heard the albums she made with Stanley Turrentine? There are several, on Blue Note, Prestige, Impulse ... the finest, I think, are "Hustlin'" (Blue Note, with Kenny Burrell, Bob Cranshaw and the unsung Otis "Candy" Finch), "Blue Flames" (Prestige, same band sans Burrell) and the live recordings on "Queen of the Organ" (Impulse, same line-up without Burrell - the early 90s GRP CD contains plenty of bonus tracks and may be my one favourite Scott release).

[SimonNZ]

Have you heard the albums she made with Stanley Turrentine? There are several, on Blue Note, Prestige, Impulse ... the finest, I think, are "Hustlin'" (Blue Note, with Kenny Burrell, Bob Cranshaw and the unsung Otis "Candy" Finch), "Blue Flames" (Prestige, same band sans Burrell) and the live recordings on "Queen of the Organ" (Impulse, same line-up without Burrell - the early 90s GRP CD contains plenty of bonus tracks and may be my one favourite Scott release).

I've heard some of them. I know Blue Flames, but will check out Queen Of The Organ and Hustlin. Never Let Me Go was one of my favorites of the two together.

[king ubu]

I've heard some of them. I know Blue Flames, but will check out Queen Of The Organ and Hustlin. Never Let Me Go was one of my favorites of the two together.

I really just mentioned my favourites ... but "Never Let Me Go" and - to my ears even more so - "Dearly Beloved" are mighty good, too, as is the Prestige CD-twofer with two more albums. But I like the extra spice added by Kenny Burrell on "Hustlin'" (he's one of my top favourite jazz guitarists) and even more I love the added sweat and grease on the live recording.

As news of Claus Ogerman's death in March has now been officially put out, I've spent the last three hours digging for CDs and playing tracks he arranged for the likes of Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, Jimmy Smith, Tom Jobim (the debut album) ... and then proceeded with this one in its entirety:



Now proceeding with this (only four tracks by Ogerman, the rest by Don Sebesky and one by João Donato):



After that, I will end up the day with this:



Actually, this (for those who knew: unexpected) re-appearance of Ogerman as arranger was, if memory doesn't play tricks on me, the album that finally had me dig Ogerman, kind of ... my rigorous teenage self would not give vocalists much credit and looked down on any "pop" kind of arrangements or "with strings" settings (the Clifford Brown album being a notable exception). But as I knew Diana Krall from very early on (my dad brought home her second album before she got any bigger press, the third was the Nat Cole tribute that was kind of a breakthrough, I think) and liked her and kept following her, I grew to really really love her first diva rekkid (as I call 'em), arranged by Johnny Mandel, and also bought the follow-up with Ogerman ... it's a classy affair, for sure, and the title track is just gorgeous (though all in all, I still prefer the Manel-arranged "When I Look In Your Eyes", it just has the better/more fun tunes, I find).

[SimonNZ]

Arnett Cobb - Movin' Right Along (1960)

[king ubu]

Enjoying to see all these oldies/goodies being played, Simon!

I know almost all of them to various degrees ... i.e. love Lateef and his early albums bigtime, occasionally play some Gator Tail, love Lacy but these early albums feel more like a good preamble to things to come ... Cobb is a bad m-f on tenor ... and the Art Taylor one is wonderful!

[SimonNZ]

Enjoying to see all these oldies/goodies being played, Simon!

I know almost all of them to various degrees ... i.e. love Lateef and his early albums bigtime, occasionally play some Gator Tail, love Lacy but these early albums feel more like a good preamble to things to come ... Cobb is a bad m-f on tenor ... and the Art Taylor one is wonderful!

That's interesting. I hardly know Lacy's albums at all, but the one of Monk covers really piqued my curiosity. Which are your favorites of his?

[king ubu]

That's interesting. I hardly know Lacy's albums at all, but the one of Monk covers really piqued my curiosity. Which are your favorites of his?

He has quite a huge discography ... first things that come to mind are some of his Hat albums (I have them in their hatOLOGY incarnations, mostly OOP I think): "School Days" (a sixties date with Roswell Rudd in a piano-less quartet with Henry Grimes and the great Denis Charles, again with Monk material), "Clinkers" (a mighty fine solo album), "N.Y. Capers & Quirks" (a great trio album with Charles again, and Ronnie Boykins on bass), and maybe the top recommendation of all, "Morning Joy", featuring a gorgeous live recording of the quartet with Steve Potts on alto sax (and Jean-Jacques Avenel/Oliver Johnson bass/drums ... John Betsch was the other longtime drummer of Lacy's)

There are two boxes out on CAM Jazz collecting his Soul Note/Black Saint album, which include some favourites. The first box collects solo/duo/trio albums:
http://www.camjazz.com/boxsets/steve-lacy.html
The two Monk solo albums and the two duos with Mal Waldron are great, "Sempre Amore" particularly outstanding ... the trio albums are fine, too (I'm not very familiar with "The Flame" yet, didn't know it before the box appeared, but love "The Window").

The second has larger groups (quartet/quintet/sextet/octet):
http://www.camjazz.com/boxsets/steve-lacy-quartet-quintet-sextet-octet.html
This again contains a few great albums, including three fine all star albums with Roswell Rudd, George Lewis, Misha Mengelberg (two albums of Herbie Nichols tunes and "Trickles" sans piano) ... "Vespers" is excellent as well, but the singing of Lacy's wife Irène Aebi (she also plays some cello occasionally) is a taste most will likely never quite acquire ...

Some crucial sideman recordings were made with Mal Waldron on Enja ("Hard Talk", "Moods", "One-Upmanship"), and the epic live recordings from the Dreher (four CDs, again on Hat) are top tier as well. While in Italy he also made some good music with Giorgio Gaslini (the Gaslini Intégrale double disc sets on Soul Note/CAM are highly recommended, there were four of them ... the CAM box of Gaslini's later albums is worthwhile but nowhere nearly as essential as those early recordings or his Monk and Ayler solo albums later on).

I was lucky enough to be there when Lacy performed solo in Zurich in 2003 - one of the most touching concerts I ever witnessed. I have not yet dared to re-listen to it (it's out on Intakt: http://www.intaktrec.ch/171-a.htm)

Hope this helps ... I guess I'd try for some of the Hats (including, if you have the chance, the Dreher set with Waldron), and depending on how much you want, go for one or both of the Soul Notes and then maybe add those Enjas w/Waldron.

[king ubu]

[king ubu]

[SimonNZ]

Thanks again, KU. Great you got to see Lacy live.

playing now:



Betty Roche - Singin' And Swingin' (1960)
Gigi Gryce - The Rat Race Blues (1960)

[king ubu]

Two favourites there! Roche has made but three albums, alas, but all are worth looking for. She was with Ellington for a while, but there aren't that many (or easily found) recordings either. Chant du Monde's "Precious & Rare" series has a Roche-set on offer with all three albums plus added singles - this is PD territory, of course, but you get a full booklet with photos, labels, notes and full information - I'm quite a fan of this series. Here's a link:
https://www.amazon.fr/Complete-1941-1961-Betty-Roche/dp/B00B7TRZTM

Here, last night I closed off the day with this:



And now, this one is blasting:



This Konnex disc contains five tracks by the quartet, so should have been renamed "5,5,4," - but the bonus track is just 1:39 short ... then, however, there follows a 23:10 track by S.M.E. in the line-up of Nigel Coombes, violin; Roger Smith, acoustic guitar; John Stevens, drums - not sure if that one has ever been released elsewhere before, it's from 1992 while the main session dates from 1979 (the main date was also reissued - with other Parker/Steven bonus material - by Emanem, but I don't know that disc).

[Karl Henning]

I don't care if you think it's unimaginative of me:  the only jazz I have been listening to for two weeks, has been three Thelonious Monk albums.

[king ubu]

I don't care if you think it's unimaginative of me:  the only jazz I have been listening to for two weeks, has been three Thelonious Monk albums.

Well, as long as you don't call me unimaginative when I stick to jazz for a while and don't listen to any classical ... 

Seriously, Monk is always a pleasure, one of my musical fixtures, ever since I started listening seriously (the others of that same top rank are Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Basie, Lester Young, Dolphy, Ellington ...)

[Karl Henning]

Well, as long as you don't call me unimaginative when I stick to jazz for a while and don't listen to any classical ... 

Seriously, Monk is always a pleasure, one of my musical fixtures, ever since I started listening seriously (the others of that same top rank are Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Basie, Lester Young, Dolphy, Ellington ...)

Over the years I have dipped an infrequent toe into the sea of Jazz;  my investigation of Monk emerged from the chance of running across (and reading through) the Robin Kelley bio.  But he rapidly became both a listening obsession and a composer/performer hero.

[king ubu]

Over the years I have dipped an infrequent toe into the sea of Jazz;  my investigation of Monk emerged from the chance of running across (and reading through) the Robin Kelley bio.  But he rapidly became both a listening obsession and a composer/performer hero.

That's cool! Haven't read but some chapters of the Kelley book so far, but it's very thorough and still very readable. For me, jazz was the main thing since my early teens (Bob Dylan the other main thing, some funk and trip-hop running along, it was the 90s and I wasn't looking for complete social isolation  - seriously, I still enjoy listening to some of the music from those years, Portishead for instance) - anyway, classical was in the shades ... I dug some early music (Machaut, Dufay, Ockeghem ... probably about a CD each, that's what the school library would yield), my latin teacher had me grow a fascination for Monteverdi's "Orfeo" (the Gardiner recording was in the library), I went to the opera occasionally but would rarely listen at home (one I did buy was "Salome", the HvK recording, still on the shelves but quite obviously no longer a favourite, now that I dug into classical so much deeper). I also had some of those Hat Hut releases early (the two Soviet Avantgarde discs of piano music, some Morton Feldman, some Cage, some Haubenstock-Ramati ...) - so it was like, 98% jazz, the rest split up between rock/pop and early and 20c classical, I guess 

But Monk ... he was one of the first I bought a book on and started to collect systematically (Coltrane, Miles and Mingus were the others, later also Ornette ... with Dolphy it was easier, some stray discs plus the big Prestige box ... and of course the glorious recordings with Mingus).

What Monk have you been listening to?